Last week I pulled the first of the carrots at the community garden. I did this mostly because a rabbit (or other critter) had been eating some, before we'd even tried them.
Those carrots were pretty comical in their mutant state. But I washed them up, bagged them, and sent them on their way to a college campus visit. I sent them as a snack for Chris, but apparently both his son and my nephew ate them too (amazing). That is after noting their deformed shapes and naming them "witches fingers".
So I pulled a few more last night and these actually resemble carrots. You can see by the deformed curves how the boys came up with that name.
I'd mentioned the carrots in a previous post and my sister sent me a text photo of her office garden carrots. They look almost as bad, bigger but lots of splits. So I'm not alone. I learned last year that my mistake was not loosening the dirt as deeply as possible. This year my intent was to prep the soil for carrots, but we ended up just throwing the starts in quickly. I guess I figured our fluffy rototilled soil was good enough.
The only thing left for me to see are the carrots I planted in a container here at home. They are still growing and not pushing up yet. If they turn out straight, then I may do carrots in containers in the future. If not, carrots can join radishes in my list of veggies that I've tried, one too many times with no success.
I planted carrots in a raised bed this year(we used tires) they did really well, were about the size of your pinky and then all the sudden a few days later they were gone, the tops were left but the bottoms were gone. Any ideas on what may have ate them and how to prevent them?
ReplyDeleteI'm not an expert, but my best guess is moles. I've lost some landscape plants to moles in the last year or two.
DeleteFor a better answer to your question you might contact your local Extension Office. Let me know what you find out.